JERUSALEM – Beginning Oct. 7, when Hamas terrorists used remote controlled drones to disarm tanks and knock out surveillance cameras during its surprise attack on Israel, through to last week, when a Hezbollah drone from Lebanon landed directly in an army base in northern Israel, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly becoming part of the weapons arsenal used by Iranian-backed non-state players in their war against the Jewish state. While Israel has in place what it calls "an aerial defense array" – used multiple times over the past three months to thwart "hostile aircraft" from Gaza and Lebanon – as UAVs become easier to obtain, manufacture, enhance and weaponize, Israel, as well as other countries around the world, are racing to contend with an ever more lethal form of combat that is already outpacing existing military defense systems. "The Israeli – and the U.S. – militaries have been using drones for a long time, especially in counterterrorism, for intelligence gathering or for precision strikes in order to distinguish between civilians and fighters," Dr. Liran Antebi, program director of advanced technologies and national security at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, told Fox News Digital. Xtend's Griffon Counter UAVs, with speeds of up to 93.1 miles per hour, and AI technology are being used by the IDF to identify and kill rogue drones. "However, what was once the silver bullet used by democracies in counterterrorism and to act in more ethical ways, is now in the hands of terrorists or non-democratic states and is being used in the opposite way," she said.

Naftali Bennett spoke exclusively with Fox News Digital about the benefits of AI and the need to set parameters for its use now. Israel is working to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into its battlefield operations as it looks to lead the way on handling "the biggest game changer" for technology. "The future of defense systems and of military will rely heavily on artificial intelligence," former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview. "I'm talking about the analysis of massive data in intelligence," he explained. Any country who seeks to be strong has to develop now an AI strategy," which he said he did during his tenure as prime minister. The Israel Defense Forces announced in February that the force has started utilizing AI in its operations, saying new digital methods helped produce "200 new target assets" during a 10-day operation in 2021 to successfully target at least two Hamas commanders, The Jerusalem Post reported. "Remember breaking the human barrier?

Businesses need to better fund AI cybersecurity to combat the growing threat of artificially intelligent (AI) cyberattacks, according to the CTO of the Cyber Security Research Center at Ben-Gurion University, Dudu Mimran. Speaking at the OECD Forum, Mimran predicted that AI would become a more common weapon in the arsenal of hackers. The senior telecommunications and cybersecurity expert argued that this is partly because using AI would be "cheaper, faster and smarter" for hackers. AI-driven cyberattacks could take many forms, including phishing, identity theft and denial-of-service attacks. According to Natan Bandler, CEO and co-founder of Cy-oT, the two main areas in which AI is being used to carry out attacks are as a "tool to find exploits" and for auto hacking to "map existing exploits and weaknesses."

The first thing many of us think about when it comes to the future relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity is Skynet--the fictional neural net-based group mind from the "Terminator" movie franchise. But at least one security professional (with a somewhat rosier view) suggested that AI must be understood across a broader landscape, regarding how it will influence cybersecurity and how IT can use AI to plan for future security technology purchases. Earlier this year, Dudu Mimran, chief technology officer (CTO) at Telekom Innovation Laboratories in Israel, discussed the relationship between AI and cybersecurity in a speech and subsequent blog post for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Forum 2018. I caught up with Mimran at his office in Beersheba, Israel for an interview, which we continued later over email. "While the threat of cyberattacks powered by AI is increasingly likely, I am less concerned in the short- and midterm about machines making up their minds and being able to harm people," Mimran said.